


dig up the bones (but leave the soul alone)

by ElasticElla



Category: All American (TV)
Genre: (canon material), Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Drug Use, F/F, Self-Harm, Witchcraft, olivia-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: Olivia doesn’t just turn to pills.





	dig up the bones (but leave the soul alone)

**Author's Note:**

> title from ms mr's bones  
> & written for the magical realism ficathon, [come play](https://girlmarauders.dreamwidth.org/27678.html) \o/
> 
> ...one day i'll write another all american ship, today is not that day X)

Olivia’s high as fuck the first time she seriously considers it. Not in a joking ‘it wouldn’t matter if she failed’ kind of way, not in a ‘wouldn’t it be nice if’ kind of way. But the first time she truly thinks, _yes, I would trade my soul for another_. 

And that’s the first step to becoming a witch.

.

Spells are only an assortment of ingredients for change. The trouble is these days, she doesn’t want to change. That’s not quite true- it’s more like, she wants the change to be over, she doesn’t want the process. 

She wants to love herself again, she doesn’t want to forgive herself. She wants things to go back to normal, she doesn’t want to stay in her mind sober. She wants the next chapter of her life, she doesn’t want to turn the day to day pages. 

She wants to be alone, she doesn’t want to lose her friends. 

It feels like her mind has turned on her, and she can turn away too. 

.

Olivia doesn’t know how she’s still getting away with it. Well, she knows. Understands even. 

Her Dad is busy with the losing football team, and her mother with politics. She hasn’t said it yet, but she’s thinking about running and when Olivia’s thinking more clearly, she wonders what might come out next year. Jordan’s dating a new girl and boy, and for once Olivia’s grateful how loud her brother is, that she doesn’t stumble into the three playing pool or xbox. 

What she doesn’t know is why she keeps tempting the fates to get caught. 

.

Most of the literature she finds about magic is bullshit. But she has lots of pills and lots of time and no need for sleep. She reads and reads and reads until her eyes ache, and then she’ll finally shut her laptop, her eyelids- but sleep won’t come. Laying for hours, perfecting the corpse pose, thinking and rethinking how magic might work. Thinking and rethinking what her future might look like, if she has one, how very close yet far away it is. 

Two magic themes keep coming back, and as always she knows the answer but doesn’t want to do the math. 

Intent and sacrifice. 

As long as you know what you want, you can rip the future out of yourself. 

.

The first major spell she does is an accident. 

Olivia’s already done simple ones- burnt fingertips for unburnt banana bread, a bleeding tongue for sweetened words, a severe haircut for people to stop looking at her face. Simple trades, simply done. 

Major spellwork requires deeper sacrifice, requires commitment. (Olivia’s never been good at that.)

Her and Asher go on a trip, go to his bedroom and Olivia trades herself for loneliness. There’s no more being friends with Layla or Asher or any of their mutual friends after that. 

It’s an accident. A terrible accident that she wishes hadn’t happened. 

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want the rewards. 

Alone, unreal- life is easy this way. 

.

Too easy. Or perhaps she wanted to be caught, to skip to the next chapter. 

Rehab in the Hills is a glorified vacation with mandatory therapy. It’s mostly white women, students and housewives, lounging about the pool like they’re at a resort. (There isn’t alcohol of course, but there are virgin daiquiris and pina coladas with little umbrellas.) 

It’s nice. To be surrounded by strangers she doesn’t care about, to be free. A few months in, and she even believes the outside might not be so bad. Stops dreading the weekends her parents or Jordan visit. 

She isn’t ready for the story to end anymore, that must be progress. 

.

Layla visits her once. 

Forgiveness and flowers in her hands, and Olivia wants to hate her. It would make everything so much neater, if only. 

Layla comes with sweet words and sweeter promises, and Olivia rips them to shreds. She goes too far, a curse on her tongue, tells her what she and Asher did at that party. 

Layla doesn’t come back. 

It’s a victory Olivia tells herself, but she can’t remember why. 

.

When the outside isn't terrifying, when she's sick of the special brand of racist pity from the housewives inside, when she might have to repeat a year if she stays- Olivia goes back to school.

School has become empty, a robotic necessity. 

None of the kids want to associate with the latest fuck up- that got caught- and she avoids Layla’s eye the few times she tries to make contact. Jordan and the teachers are the only ones that talk to her, her vocal chords growing brittle. Her twin, bless his soul, insists on going to school with her, a spell later not recognizing anything is different this time. (The burning eyes are well worth whatever interrogation her mother would put her under for ‘not socializing properly’.) The teachers call on her no more or no less than the others, satisfied that her homework is now regular. 

It’s everything that she imagined before. She isn’t even afraid of her mind anymore, only bored.

She hates it. 

.

Boredom means her thoughts come thick and fast, her fantasies run wild. (There is no spell to quiet a mind, to kill a witch’s craft.)

Boredom means she covets what she doesn’t have. That she imagines her and Layla together again, only closer, without any past pain or bitterness. 

There’s a spell naturally. All Olivia has to do is rip her heart out, to beat without it, and Layla would be forever hers. The idea disgusts her of course- not the mutilation, that is easy enough. But of Layla having no will.

Instead she burns her fingertips and bakes Layla’s favorite apple turnovers. They won’t make her forgive or forget, but they’re a good first step. 

.

Layla doesn’t forgive or forget. Not at first. But she does smile, she does talk, and Olivia will create whatever she desires. (That is too intimate to admit, instead she asks for baking suggestions, saying it’s her new staying sober hobby. Which isn’t entirely untrue.) 

Olivia burns her fingertips often enough that she starts wearing gloves. That she doesn’t simply get better at baking isn’t lost on her, that she’d rather sacrifice bits of herself. A most literal personal touch. 

Layla doesn’t forget, but sometime before January she did forgive. She confesses before midnight that she forgave her long ago, and it takes all of her willpower not to kiss her as the countdown starts. 

Olivia is a witch. She won’t make the first move, must know Layla’s heart is true. 

.

They start studying together again, and Olivia helps out with some student council stuff. They watch football together, watching Jordan and Spencer and it all feels like a tuned version of before. 

Layla holds her gloved hand, and they walk around campus talking about nothing, and Olivia is happy. 

Layla holds her bare hand, and they run along the beach, collapsing in giggles. Layla kisses her, and Olivia’s world shines.


End file.
